Soay-A Survivor

Looking at you

Originally uploaded by jonesor

Soay is a small, primitive breed of sheep that are to be the related to the sheep that existed in the British Isles before the Norse and Romans brought their breeds to the Isle. Their name is derived from the island of Soay off the coast of Scotland.

The Soay in the US has a long and circuitous history. I will refer you to Southern Oregon Soay Sheep Farms website for a good bit of reading on the subject. They are tiny sheep weighing between 45 and 90 lbs. They do not show any flocking instinct and their short fleece sheds on an annual basis. Their color varies from tan to black along with several patterns. Rams have horns while the ewes can be horned or polled. They also have short tails that do not need to be docked.

The fleece comes in two types, a finer woolly type and a coarser kempy type that is called hairy. The staple length varied from about 2″ to about 3.5″ and total fleece weight can be anywhere from 3-5 lbs. Pretty impressive considering the small size of these sheep.

Thanks to OK State Breeds of Livestock, Southern Oregon Soay Sheep Farms, and Soays of America for the information in this post. Of course without the generosity of Amelia Carlson this article would not be possible.

The Tour De Fleece went well. I managed to spin every day of the tour, which was my goal. I finished my spinning with this batt.

Enchanted Knolls Farms Chai batts.

Now I need to decide if I’m going to follow with the Ravelympics. I’m thinking not… I need to get some weaving done and train a certain cute little puppy!

He loves the agility equipment at his puppy class that is for sure. Now if his recall was just as good…sigh…

A Festival In My Own Backyard

Wow, what a weekend at the Midwest Fiber & Folk Art Fair. How quickly did I go from just going shopping on Friday night to being there all three days for greater or lesser amounts of time.

I decided not to take pictures while at the event. Even though the temperatures are cooler than other years, I’m not handling the heat as well this year for some reason.

First night was almost pure shopping. My dinner was polish food…oh man, better not get a cholesterol test anytime soon… One of the first people I run into is Sara. Her and her family were there at the festival. We talk a bit about her classes and she talks me into going ahead and taking her class that I had been toying around with taking. After signing up for the Sunday morning class, I hit a few vendors and called Beth to see how things were going at the workshop there and if Abby had made it. Denny was already causing trouble and I could hear the commotion in the background. No Abby, but Beth had a couple books I wanted so I’m getting them from her. I am in one booth, buying some roving when a pink batt in the next booth catches my eye. Turns out the owner of the booth with the pink batt is Stephanie who used to 1/2 of the SSK podcast. And she’s the one that is sharing the booth with Meghan!

Saturday I managed to meet up with Meghan of Stitch It Podcast. I let her try my Majacraft wheel to see if she likes double treadle. Of course she fell in love with it. She also received a scholarship for SOAR so I presented her with some “homework” before she goes. Oh and a tiny bit of temptation as well. Now understand, I had already taken one dog to the vet, taken Mas to his first week of puppy class and gone to a geocaching event before going to the fair.

Sunday dawned with me taking Sara’s Intermediate Weaving class. I discovered that I was putting in the raddle at the wrong point in the warping process. I first need to secure the back of the warp to the apron rod then spread the warp in the raddle. Duh! There were many other things I learned as well especially about alpaca. One of the other students owns alpacas so Sara talked a good deal about its properties.

I also picked up some more fiber and some books while I was there. And talked and flitted and enabled some more. All in all it was fun and if I’m in town, I’ll certainly make plans to go back.

Mas? He’s now 11 weeks old. Last Saturday was his first puppy class as I mentioned earlier.

Isn’t he cute My future agility partner.

California Varigated Mutant-A Surprise On The Spindle

I purchased what was advertised as a California Varigated Mutant, (CVM) fleece, last fall at Wisconsin Sheep And Wool Festival. Its unusual to see CVM’s fleeces at this festival and finding it in fantastic shape snapped it up right away.

My first surprise with this fleece is that the lock is fairly unorganized. This personally sends up a red flag. According to the breed standard: The wool should have a well defined crimp from base to tip with no kemp or hair present. While, the fleece is free from kemp and hair, and the crimp is deep, the hand is also more “crisp” then I would expect from its heritage as well as being coarser. So I started working the fleece with a critical eye.

The fluffy rolags worked up nicely. It had been coated and was virtually free of vegetable matter. But the fleece appeared to be sunburned in that it much lighter on the tips. This turned out to be brittle and created neps in the rolag.

And here is a woolen yarn spun from the rolags. Neps and all.

Combing it produced a much smoother, easier to draft product…but the hand once again was not correct. It still felt more like a down breed than what CVM should feel like.

The yarn worked up nicely though.

Overall I think we are going to do this exercise over again. My determination is that this is a CVM cross fleece, probably crossed with a down breed. I will now search for either a Romeldale or CVM fleece from a registered animal. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very nice fleece, it is just does not appear to be from a purebred CVM.

Now for the obligatory puppy update!

Mas is 9 weeks old now and is doing well. Eating well and even training is going well. He is a little Houdini though! He can escape from the kitchen in about 2 seconds given the chance. We will be working through Sue Ailsby’s Training Levels for his basic training with additional training for specific sports, like agility.

Now I’m off to play with my puppy. After he is asleep I’ll spin for the Tour De Fleece!

Help Has Arrived

Big Runs Llanka Masi

He is here, the Australian Shepherd puppy formerly known as Oxley. He is now called Big Runs Llanka Masi (pronounced yon-ka mossy), Mas for short. His name means “work sharer” and many many thanks to Abby for translating my ideas to Quechua.

He’s just over 8 weeks old. Currently none of the dogs are telling me to send him back, but that may change. Luke and Adam don’t care for puppies, Daisy loves them as long as they don’t run. Danny and Roo appear to be my main puppy-raisers, good, fair and don’t over correct. I realize now that its been almost nine years since I had a puppy that young. Adam was a good 6 weeks older when he came home.

The boy has the attention span of a gnat. As you can see in the picture, he is struggling to go exploring. On his first full day living with us he got to meet people and dogs at an agility trial. He got to meet his sires owner as well as a couple of my agility instructors and a keeshond. Also I can get about 4-5 clicks in before he is off to find something else to do.

Both parents are titled in agility, obedience and rally. His dam, Sera, is a registered therapy dog and is titled in rally, obedience, and agility. His sire, Ace, is titled in agility, obedience, rally and herding.

I’m surprised he hasn’t discovered that the shelties have tails. But the shelties can take care of themselves and they will let him know that biting Sheltie tails get little Aussie puppies in trouble. If you would like to view the entire set of pictures you can find them here. And here are the pictures of the litter as they were growing up.

Well, it sure looks like we won’t be trialling outside in the heat of summer. He already shows a preference for keeping cool. But then again, what do you expect from a black dog?

And now for my Tour De Fleece update…

I’m working on what I have been working on for the past week.

Spinning my Pumpkin Juice batts from my Enchanted Knoll Happy Hooves Sock Batt Club. I am working toward a three ply unlike I have spun before. From here I will continue with some Spunky Eclectic fiber that has been waiting patiently for me to spin it.

Oh yeah batt love!

Let’s just see if I can spin every day of the Tour…one down, 24 to go…